Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of stress sources (such as operations) on a patient's state of anxiety, the relationship between patient anxiety and arousal, and the influence that stress sources or the times of receiving stress have on arousal. In the investigation, the following points were examined. (1) Changes in states of anxiety before and after operations, (2) The relationship between states of anxiety and arousal (tense arousal, energetic arousal) before and after operations, (3) The different effects that separate types of stress (operations, injections) and different times (before, after) have on arousal. Twenty-five patients filled out the Japanese UWIST Mood Adjective Check List (JUMACL) and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) before and after having operations. Sixty-eight patients filled out the JUMACL before and after receiving injections. The following results were obtained.
1) State anxiety was lower after operations than before. This indicates that stress affects states anxiety.
2) State anxiety was related positively to tense arousal and negatively to energetic arousal. In patients with high anxiety, tense arousal increased while energetic arousal decreased.
3) Tense arousal resulting from stress before both operations and injections was higher than that resulting from stress afterwards. In addition, although energetic arousal showed a tendency to increase more as a result of stress after operations than before, the same was not true in the case of injections.
The results indicating that stress affects state anxiety and that state anxiety relates to arousal partly agree with Scott's stress-coping model. Also, the ways that stress influence arousal support the resuluts of Kitamura. Thus, nursing seems to be needed based on these results.
